Here I talk about life and writing and my books, including The Tales from Atlantis book one Digging Up the Past and book two Reaching for Beyond. I give hints about what's to come and excerpts from current works.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

The Spade of Apocatequil

The Spade of Apocatequil

When I first met Riley Perez, the main character in Digging
Up the Past, she introduced herself to me as Peruvian, which peaked my interest
in Peruvian myths and legends, and I became fascinated with the tale of
Apocatequil. Apocatequil is the God of
Lightning and the High Priest of the Moon to the Huamachuco Indians in Peru. He
is often associated with evil because of this connection to night. His twin brother Piguerao is the God of the
Day, so the association with night comes naturally.

According to Huamachuco Indian legend, Apocatequil and his
brother were born among the underground people known as the Guachimines. Their father was the first man sent above to
Earth by the creator god Atagudu. The
Guachimines killed both the brother’s parents, before they were born, but when
Apocatequil touched his mother’s body, she came back to life. Atagudu helped Apocatequil kill the
Guachimines, and told him to use a golden spade to dig his way to the above
ground. This hole enabled the Huamachuco
to escape and populate the land. After
that, it was believe that wherever he struck his spade into the ground, people
rose up.

Like most authors, I tend to play the “what if” game quite often,
and from there it was an easy leap to the spade offering immortality to the
holder and the ability to raise the dead.
In a world where magic has returned within the last 200 years, magical
artifacts are suddenly active again, and they are often quite dangerous, particularly
in the wrong hands. That seemed a fitting place for the Tales from Atlantis to
start.

Riley Perez and her partner Jason have to retrieve the spade
before anyone uses it, and preferably before the Peruvian Government finds out
that it’s missing. The problem is, most
of their suspects were on the dig in Peru, and are on the dig now. No one is
missing or has changed their lifestyle in the least that anyone can tell.
Anyone with that kind of power would hardly be able to resist using it. As a
result, Riley and Jason are undercover.
Riley is posing as a dog walker and grad student, and Jason as a grad
student.

Excerpt:

Mena should be here, but there was no trace
of her emotions in the house. The only thing left of her was a void in the
house where life should be. There’s a unique emotional sensation that comes
with sudden death. Rather than there just not being any emotion to feel, it’s
like there’s a hole in the emotional fabric of the house.

A
shot exploded through the house. Keesha screamed again. Clutching her tighter,
I ran out the front door. My heart ached at not being able to go back in to see
for myself what had happened to Mena, and to check on Angel, but my only option
at that point was to call the cops. With the lack of actual activity the past
five months, we’d all been lulled into a false sense of security and hadn’t
really expected any problems. That was our first mistake.

My
ragged Ford Escort, the color of which can best be described as rust and green,
was parked in front of the house. When we reached the car, I opened the
passenger door and tried to put Keesha in. She wrapped her arms around me
tighter and screamed louder. Finally, I sat down in the seat and swung myself
in with Keesha still attached. Holding her close to me, we leaned over and I
reached under the driver’s seat to replace my gun. Once she stopped screaming
again, I pulled out my cell phone, dialed 911 and then called Keesha’s parents.

“Braden.”
Keesha’s father answered on the second ring.

“Dr.
Braden, something’s happened at the house!” I almost sobbed into the phone.
“I’ve got Keesha with me, and I’ve called the police, but I can’t find Mena. Angel
was after something upstairs, and I think I heard a gunshot!”

“Where
are you now?”

“In
my car! With the doors locked!” I focused on sounding just a bit unsteady and
very scared. I really was a bit unsteady because my senses told me Mena was
dead, but I was more pissed than scared.